A MAJOR British restaurant chain has fallen into administration with 87 stores put up for sale.
The future of TGI Fridays restaurants in the UK is in doubt amid fears the catering group behind them could go under.
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TGI Fridays may be closing with sites for sale. Credit: Alamy
It comes after TV star Simon Rimmer’s last remaining Greens restaurant announced its closure yesterday – just months after the first closed its doors.
Hostmore, which owns TGI’s in this country, is trying to sell the franchise so it can continue to operate under new ownership.
The catering firm said it had appointed joint administrators from Tene and hoped to sell all of its 87 UK restaurants to new owners by the end of September.
This would keep the TGI Fridays brand alive and save thousands of jobs amid concerns that the famous name could disappear from the high street.
But it said earlier this month it does not expect to “recover any significant value” from the sale of the sites – meaning it will earn less from the sale than it owes creditors and banks.
It has not been confirmed whether all TGI’s restaurants can be saved or only selected ones, while the others could potentially be taken over by another chain.
The restaurant chain first opened in the UK in the 1980s and has been a popular destination for birthday parties and cocktail parties for the past 40 years.
The first branch of TGI Friday’s opened in New York in 1965 to celebrate weekend dining – the name means ‘Thank God it’s Friday’ – and in 1986 the brand was imported to the UK.
CANCEL THE DOWNLOAD
It comes after Hostmore abandoned plans to buy all TGI restaurants in the US, where there are 128 locations, in a deal that would have been worth £177m.
It would merge with the American company TGI Fridays Inc, to create a larger company that would remain listed on the London Stock Exchange.
Closing of Greens restaurant
But takeover plans were abandoned following a management change that would have meant it could not collect royalties from the TGI Fridays brand.
News of the collapse caused shares of the London-listed company to drop by more than 90 percent.
The share price has fallen 96 percent since the beginning of this month to close at 10 p.m. yesterday.
In its stock market update last Monday, Hostmore said year-to-date sales were 12 percent lower than the same period last year, blaming “sustained warmer weather than the 2023 comparison period and weak consumer spending.”
‘DUB DUBS’
After first opening in Birmingham, TGI Fridays quickly expanded across the country with its popular American bistro-style casual dining format.
The serving staff were known as Dub Dubs and taught the art of entertaining their customers with pranks, pranks and other tricks like juggling and magic tricks, all done with impeccable table skills and glee.
In the early 1990s, the Covent Garden branch of TGI Friday’s was the most successful restaurant in Europe.
The chain was bought by a private equity firm 10 years ago, with a rebrand removing all punctuation from the restaurant’s name to become TGI Fridays.
In 2021, the company was spun off into Hostmore, a listed company, and the restaurants were briefly renamed just “Friday’s” before marketing chiefs discovered customers were still calling it “TGI’s” and reverted to the original name.
The restaurant chain’s fortunes have faded of late, with Hostmore revealing that UK sales have fallen by more than a tenth this year, compared to last year.
Now Hostmore is in the process of selling its UK restaurants to new owners, with the aim of becoming a fully franchised model.
The sale process, which is expected to be completed by the end of the month, is expected to result in Hostmore being liquidated and delisted from the London Stock Exchange.
Its UK restaurants, which feature New York-influenced food and cocktail menus, remain open as usual.
TGI Fridays’ largest market is in the US, where it has 128 restaurants, including franchise sites, and operates more than 270 in countries around the world.
In April, Tasty, owner of Wildwood Italian restaurant and Dim T, a pan-Asian restaurant, announced plans to exit about 20 loss-making restaurants after a “challenging” start to the year.
The Italian restaurant chain Prezzo announced that it was closing dozens of branches last year, and now there are growing fears that there will be even more.
Which TGI Fridays locations are affected?
All 87 of the brand’s UK outlets are in the process of being sold, affecting the following locations:
- Aberdeen Beach
- Aberdeen Union Square
- Ashton-under-Lyne
- Barnsley
- Basildon
- Birmingham
- Birmingham NEC
- Blue water
- Bolton
- Bournemouth
- Bracknell
- Braehead
- Braintree
- Marina Brighton
- Cabot Circus
- Cardiff Newport Road
- Cardiff St David’s
- Castleford
- Cheadle
- Chelmsford
- Cheltenham
- Cheshire Oaks
- Coventry
- Crawley
- Cribbs Causeway
- Croydon
- Derby
- Doncaster
- Durham
- Edinburgh
- Enfield
- Fareham
- Kinnaird Castle
- Gateshead
- Glasgow Buchanan Street
- Fort Glasgow
- Gloucester Quays
- Halifax
- High Wycombe
- Jersey
- Lakeside Quay
- Lakeside Retail Park
- Leeds Junction 27
- Leeds Wellington Bridge Street
- The White Rose of Leeds
- Leicester
- Lincoln
- Liverpool one
- Liverpool Speke
- London Leicester Square
- London Stratford City
- London O2
- Manchester Royal Exchange
- Meadowhall
- Gateshead Metro Centre
- Milton Keynes
- Milton Keynes Stadium
- Newcastle Eldon Square
- Newport Friars Walk
- Northampton
- Norwich
- Nottingham
- Prestwich
- Reading
- Romford
- Rushden Lakes
- Sale
- Sheffield
- Silverburn
- Solihull
- Southampton Retail Park
- Stains
- Stevenage
- Teesside
- Telford
- Trafford Centre
- Trinity Leeds
- Walsall
- Watford Central
- Watford North
- Wembley
- West Quay
Categories: Optical Illusion
Source: HIS Education